720 25p or 50p?

R

Richy Lacey

Active member
I have been working on a feature documentary for a few months now.
Based on things I had read here I decided to shoot 1080 25p.

Now it has come to start editing I have realised that my system has problems with 1080p. It's very slow to edit and plays back poorly in Premiere CS5. 720p doesn't have the same issues.

For quality which would be the best option, 720 25p or 50p?
I understand that AVCHD is a confusing format, so more bitrate for fewer frames doesn't necessarily mean better footage.
 
Have you turned the playback resolution down from full to 1/2 or 1/4? Unless you are actually watching it at 100% there is simply no need to play back at full resolution, which is what normally causes the playback problems. You can always set the pause resolution to full (100%) so that you can pause and check focus etc, but play in real time at a lower res.

What are your computer specs?
 
Playback res was set to 1/2. I'll see if 1/4 makes much of a difference.

Laptop is a 1st Gen Unibody MacBook Pro, 2GB RAM, Intel P86002.4 GHZ Core2Duo, internal hard drive is a 7,200RPM Hitachi. Nvidia 9400m and 9600M GT graphics.
Would using the 9600 GT graphics have any benefit in Premiere?
 
I would get more ram... 4gb min.

720/25 or 720/50 are not going to have a noticeable difference in "quality" per say, but are going to look different. 25 is more your "film" look and 50 is usually used for shooting fast action things like cars, sports, etc.

Also, 50 can also be slowed down to 25 for true slow motion effects.
 
First off, you need a better CPU to be editing AVCHD. A Core2Duo simply isn't up to snuff. An i7 950 or i7 2500K are good MINIMUMS for this type of editing.

Secondly, 720p25 isn't an HDTV or Blu-ray spec, so avoid that. At 720 your frame rate choices will be 24/50/60.
 
MadHMC150 said:
Well then it wouldn't be 50 would it...
Click to expand...

Absolutely correct. But it didn't stop some idiot on another forum suggesting that someone drop their 1080/24p shot on to a 720/60p timeline because then they could get slo-mo from it really easily! I guess my comments were out of context in this thread, so sorry for that, I just didn't want any one here thinking that was an option. I couldn't believe it when I read it the first time, and had to go back and read it several times to be sure what he said! Can't find the post or I'd provide a link....
 
If they had said "drop your 720/60p footage on a 1080/24p timeline" that would have been perfectly reasonable advice, all you have to do is tell the system to play the footage back at 40% speed.

Saying to put 1080/24p footage onto a 720/60p timeline makes no sense for slow-mo.
 
Barry_Green said:
If they had said "drop your 720/60p footage on a 1080/24p timeline" that would have been perfectly reasonable advice, all you have to do is tell the system to play the footage back at 40% speed.

Saying to put 1080/24p footage onto a 720/60p timeline makes no sense for slow-mo.
Click to expand...

Yup! But that's not what some arm chair observers seem to grasp!
 
Seems no one wants to help me on the GH forum so i repeat my question here,
If i have hmc151, GH13 and GH2, will shooting everything at 720 50p give me any problems in the FCP timeline?
 
qap15 said:
Seems no one wants to help me on the GH forum so i repeat my question here,
If i have hmc151, GH13 and GH2, will shooting everything at 720 50p give me any problems in the FCP timeline?
Click to expand...

It shouldn't have any problem.
 
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